It is not known that, among the Andamanese and other tribes, this last notion is due to missionary influence.  But, in regard to the whole chapter of savage Supreme Beings, we must, as Mr. Tylor advises, keep watching for Christian and Islamite contamination.  The savage notions, as Mr. Tylor says, even when thus contaminated, may have ’to some extent, a native substratum.’  We shall select such savage examples of the idea of a Supreme Being as are attested by ancient native hymns, or are inculcated in the most sacred and secret savage institutions, the religious Mysteries (manifestly the last things to be touched by missionary influence), or are found among low insular races defended from European contact by the jealous ferocity and poisonous jungles of people and soil.  We also note cases in which missionaries found such native names as ‘Father,’ ’Ancient of Heaven,’ ‘Maker of All,’ ready-made to their hands.

It is to be remarked that, while this branch of the inquiry is practically omitted by Mr. Spencer, Mr. Tylor can spare for it but some twenty pages out of his large work.  He arranges the probable germs of the savage idea of a Supreme Being thus:  A god of the polytheistic crowd is simply raised to the primacy, which, of course, cannot occur where there is no polytheism.  Or the principle of Manes worship may make a Supreme Deity out of ‘a primeval ancestor’ say Unkulunkulu, who is so far from being supreme, that he is abject.  Or, again, a great phenomenon or force in Nature-worship, say Sun, or Heaven, is raised to supremacy.  Or speculative philosophy ascends from the Many to the One by trying to discern through and beyond the universe a First Cause.  Animistic conceptions thus reach their utmost limit in the notion of the Anima Mundi.  He may accumulate all powers of all polytheistic gods, or he may ’loom vast, shadowy, and calm ... too benevolent to need human worship ... too merely existent to concern himself with the petty race of men.’[14] But he is always animistic.

Now, in addition to the objections already noted in passing, how can we tell that the Supreme Being of low savages was, in original conception, animistic at all?  How can we know that he was envisaged, originally, as Spirit?  We shall show that he probably was not, that the question ‘spirit or not spirit’ was not raised at all, that the Maker and Father in Heaven, prior to Death, was merely regarded as a deathless Being, no question of ‘spirit’ being raised.  If so, Animism was not needed for the earliest idea of a moral Eternal.  This hypothesis will be found to lead to some very singular conclusions.

It will be more fully stated and illustrated, presently, but I find that it had already occurred to Dr. Brinton.[15] He is talking specially of a heaven-god; he says ’it came to pass that the idea of God was linked to the heavens long ere man asked himself, Are the heavens material and God spiritual?’ Dr. Brinton, however, does not develop his idea, nor am I aware that it has been developed previously.